Читать книгу Unlocking the Masonic Code: The Secrets of the Solomon Key - Ian Gittins - Страница 25

The 1700s was not an era of unbridled growth and prosperity for Masonry. The Catholic Church, fighting Protestantism’s rampant encroachment onto its turf right across Europe, was less than enamoured of Freemasonry’s exclusive and secretive reputation, and Rome’s disapproval turned to outright horror when Anderson’s Book of Constitutions dispensed with the Holy Trinity within the lodge walls.

In 1738, Pope Clement XII issued a papal bull threatening any Catholics who were also Freemasons with excommunication. The following year, he upped the ante with a second decree that all Catholics within the Papal States (Italy, plus parts of France) who were found to be Masons would be executed.

Some Freemasons found themselves at the wrong end of the Inquisition in Spain, Italy and Portugal, and in 1884 Pope Leo XII came close to calling the fraternity satanic in his notorious encyclical Humanum Genus edict. Like many popes after him, he was horrified not only by Masonry’s perceived deism but also by its refusal to allow